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Taxes are the price we pay to avoid ass-rape

I apologize for the vulgarity, but I figured this title would be catchy and get my point across effectively. It is tax time again in the so-called “United States” and I thought I would make a few points about taxes. Contrary to Oliver Wendell Holmes, taxes are not the price we pay for civilization. Rather they are the price we pay to stay out of prison, where according to many movies and TV shows we can expect to get raped by large hairy men.

When the people that claim to be the state demand income tax from you as a so-called “citizen” they are really making a prior claim to your body. They are saying that they own your body. If you generate income with your body and do not pay the state a certain percentage of that income — a percentage which will be unilaterally determined by them with no input from you — they will exercise their claim to your body, take possession of it and put it in a cage where you can expect to get ass-raped. In effect taxes are rent you pay to the state on the use of your own body. If you do not use it in ways that the state approves of they reserve the right to lock it up and even kill it.

Taxes are not voluntary, no matter what anybody tells you. Even those that may support taxation and tell you that they are happy to pay taxes cannot possibly prove that they pay voluntarily. Taxes are extracted from people with threats of kidnapping and violence. The liberal that claims they pay taxes voluntarily is subject to the same violence should they not pay as anyone else. In order for them to actually show that they pay voluntarily, they would have to first show that they are somehow exempt from the penalty of violence.

Recently the famous author Steven King was at a pro-government rally with a bunch of liberals. He pointed out that his income was in the millions, yet he was only paying 28% in taxes. His challenge to the government was “Why aren’t I paying 50%?” The answer is because he does not want to. The so-called “US Treasury Department” maintains a website where they offer instructions on how to make a voluntary gift to the “United States.” So if King really wants to pay 50% no one is stopping him. I would say the same to anyone that thinks taxes are too low or that the government needs more money. Lead by example. Even if you don’t make a voluntary gift, certainly do not deduct anything on your tax return. Tell the government to keep more of your income.

We can assume that King has not made a voluntary contribution for the same reason that Warren Buffet, George Soros and Michael Moore probably have not. They do not actually want to do so. They want to keep their money. The “US Treasury” maintains another website where they track the voluntary gifts they have received. As of this writing in 2011 they received $645,917.73. We can safely assume this is less than 50% of King’s income, not to mention the other three.

Of course whenever you complain about taxes the response you will likely get from statists is that you are party to the non-existent “social contract” or that taxes go to help the poor. Few people will argue that you should pay taxes to kill poor people half way around the world with robot planes, maintain a bloated military industrial complex or pay for bailouts and subsidies to big corporations. Never mind that these are the bulk of the government’s activities. No, you should pay taxes for the poor. This argument fails on many levels.

In a society without taxes there would be nothing stopping the bleeding hearts that are so generous with your hard earned money from helping the poor. A good question to ask is whether or not the person saying this believes in democracy. If they do, then presumably taxes go to help the poor only if more than 50% of the voting population want them to. That would be more than enough people to get together and work out some programs to help the poor if there were no taxes. If that many people really want to help the poor, there is no need for the state. If the liberal statist doesn’t actually think that more than 50% of the people want to help the poor, then they would have to actually be advocating for dictatorship. Either way one of their principles has to go. Either they have to admit that that there is in fact no need for taxes to help the poor, or they have to admit that they do not really believe in democracy. The liberal is unlikely to be comfortable with either of these positions.

The same argument applies to any other service that the government claims to provide. If in fact this is a service that more than 50% of the voters want, then clearly there is enough demand that there is no need for a central apparatus of coercion to be in charge of administering it. Nor is there any evidence that taxes are payments for services in the first place. The state grants itself the right to levy taxes. Nowhere does it say that it owes anyone any services in return. The state is under absolutely no legal obligation to provide anything to anyone. If they do provide anything it is only because they feel like it and only in the quantity and quality that they choose. Taxes are by far the worst possible way to fund public services.

Just a few thoughts to consider while you do your taxes and think about how much easier your life would be if you were allowed to keep the full product of your labor.

29 thoughts on “Taxes are the price we pay to avoid ass-rape”

Well, I am extremely disappointed by this post. My brother showed it to me, and honestly, I think it is just the usual male point of view. Of course, right? How outrageous it is for a man to be raped, but no mention of women is ever made (probably with the poor argument that women were included in this sad scenario). I mean, do we not pay taxes just as high as men, even though our pay check is usually lower for the same type of job? Fine, I’m not even from the U.S., my English is not perfect and my ideas are not nearly as well articulated as all of yours. However, I believe it is very safe to say that women are being raped in the U.S. just as much (if not more) than other countries, right? And trust me, women don’t pay taxes because they fear being “ass-raped”. No, because fearing being raped is part of our everyday lives, when we walk on an “empty street”, when we are surrounded by drunk men – or actually, just plain men -, when we are left alone with “that” family member, when we choose which clothes to wear to go to school/university/work/out to have a nice time. And i swear, usually our fear of rape is not because “it is what the media is telling us to fear” (it doesn’t surprise me there was a racist tone to this post either), it is because we have been raped already, sometimes repeatedly, with this horrible experience going on for months, or even years; sometimes by not just one guy, but by many. And if, IF a woman is lucky enough to never have been raped as a child or on the course of her teenage-years or adulthood, this woman definitely fears rape because several of her -female- friends (if not all – and probably some male friends when they were children too) have gone through it before and she knows she is the lucky one and she hopes from the bottom of her heart she continues being lucky. If you care so much about not having coersion and violence take place in human relationships, why don’t you go on and write a post about how rape is the tax women are forced to pay to live in this society; and about how if they survive they have to go on an pay taxes for the state, to be “protected”? Honestly, i find it VERY hard to believe you have never been violent with a woman in your life. Think about the more accepted and un-discussed ways opression plays out and try to destroy them, if you care that much. Instead of being afraid of “ass-rape” if you don’t pay taxes, just focus on taking your head out of your ass to become a better person.

It’s all well and good to say that taxation is extortion, but what alternate system do you suggest where you wouldn’t get ass-raped by the same thug you say the government is threatening you with- except he wouldn’t be in prison because there was no operative government to run them, and no legal system to say that ass-rape was anything but fine?

You have never lived in the absence of law or taxation. That’s why you can sit behind your computer – which only exists because of government research, on the internet – which also only exists because of government research – in a house that probably won’t fall down ( building codes ), eating meat that is probably what it says it is ( FDA ), bought at a supermarket that was stocked using the interstate system ( duh ), cooked using either Natural Gas or electricity ( installed using public rights-of-way, or if you are rural, by direct government funding ) or a microwave ( military research ) and complain that you shouldn’t have to pay taxes because government has never done anything for you.

So, again, how do you imagine a world with no functional government where the threat of ass-rape would not be AT LEAST as ever present as the current one?

What argument is that? That most of the things that make it possible for us to have this conversation are products of an open, democratic society? Sorry, ace, but they are.

I’m not a ‘Statist’, I’m a ‘Pragmatist’. In point of fact, I’m a business owner. I make things, I create value, I do what others cannot. I _am_ what Ayn Rand imagined this world needed.

Now, again. Are you just standing on your little soap box making your oh so clever little speeches, or do you actually have an alternative? If you do, I’ll listen. I know the government is broken and deeply corrupt. I agree that the state already has too much power, and that we are walking blindly down a road that leads to a police state.

I’m not stupid, I’m tired of empty ignorant words. Do you have anything else to offer?

Ah wait, you claim to be an anarchist, not a libertarian. The argument remains the same, but the vocabulary changes.

Self organizing systems do not scale. Political Anarchy functions in the micro. In macro, it quickly becomes a collection of single interest parties that behaves in an irrational and unpredictable manner – Each acts rationally within their own sphere, but the collective action is incoherent and unsustainable. This happens in all natural systems, not just human interactions.

Governments – of all types – are an attempt to wrangle disparate individuals into a society capable of group action that is greater than what is possible by the individuals. A society capable of acting in it’s own enlightened self interest. All governments fail to a greater or lesser degree.

The old adage about democratic governments being the worst except for all the others is true. If you have a real solution, tell me. I agree we have a problem, and I’m game for new solutions – as long as they don’t rely on magical thinking. That somehow a just and egalitarian “self organizing” society will spontaneously emerge “just as soon as we get rid of the evil government and taxation” is idiocy. That magical society may well coalesce, and if it does, it will almost certainly be crushed by selfish, opportunistic cretins, or bled dry by leeches.

No government has ever worked well over a population, culture and geography as divers and sprawling as ours. It *almost* works in the Scandinavian countries – small population, relatively uniform geographical pressures and demography and an egalitarian cultural imperative all help out a lot.

Shane, asking me to solve all these problems is just like asking for another government. Why should I have all the answers? The only thing I am saying is that there is no need for coercion in human relationships. I know this because I have successfully lived my life without ever engaging in a single violent act, much less an act of aggression. The only time force is ever actually needed is to defend against aggressors. The government cannot be a defender when it is a systematic aggressor.

Think of your own life. Do you use threats an force to make others do as you wish and give you their money? I suspect not. I suspect you either have a job or a business where you voluntarily trade labor or goods and services for money, which you then voluntarily trade for things you need and want. This is how most people live. How could you live like this and then say that coercion is necessary?

Shane: that is like a patient asking his surgeon, prior to an operation for removing a cancerous tumor, what the surgeon will replace the tumor with.

Mike is tired of answering these same old questions over an over again. And so am I. The “pragmatic” argument is old, one we’ve both heard a million times.

If you are really interested in having your questions answered, and not being smug and saying, “see?! I told you these guys are just spouting off empty arguments,” There is plenty of good material out there on anarchist theory, libertarian thought and agorism.

He asked a legitimate question which you both tried to evade. And I have read through anarchist literature, and I’ve honestly never seen the issue addressed adequately. And your analogy makes no sense. A more appropriate analogy might be a doctor that wants to operate on a brain tumor by removing your brain. I think it would be perfectly reasonable to ask him what he plans to do about your missing brain. He wants to throw away the good with the bad and leave you with nothing.

The statement “the only thing I am saying is that there is no need for coercion in human relationships” really demonstrates the naivety of anarchism. It’s the same form of nativity apparent in many forms of communism. Replace the word coercion with greed in that statement and it becomes communist. Whether or not there is a need for coercion, coercion exits and is inherent in human nature. Anarchists seem to think that it comes only from government, but history would clearly indicate that coercion can come from anywhere and take many forms. And a system that tries to pretend that human nature is something different than what it is will always fail.

And one of the most basic reasons that governments even come into existence is to provide protection – from coercion! And I am still at a loss to understand how you provide a society with protection from naturally occurring coercive elements without some degree of coercion. That creates a dilemma, but it is the oldest and most basic, and has never been fully solved. But democracy and freedom of speech, press and assembly have helped quite a bit. And keep in mind that voluntary associations often become coercive, and poverty as a whole is a part of a much larger problem of coercion against certain members of our society.

However, there are some aspects of anarchism that I appreciate. Coercion can be dangerous, and it should be scrutinized and minimized when possible. The same is true for greed, fear, anger and hatred. This makes sense as rules to live by, but it is not a governing philosophy. We may want to minimize the negative effects of human behavior, but it is rather foolish to think that we can eliminate them. And that means that we have to account for them.

we are not saying don’t prevent violence, as any logical person would agree this is a negation of a voluntary association……..what we are suggesting it there is no reason to force participation in your activities.

Love what you had to say here, have lots of christian friends and family that I want to read about this yet how to share without offending is hard. Shared anyway with a small disclaimer about the language, hope that is ok with you. Mentioned how Facebook could do with a bottle of whiteout, lol.

Once I told some friends that government shouldn’t legislate “civil rights” because by the time 51% of politicians voted in favor of their constituents, that legislation was just trailing behind what “society” already believed was moral.

My friends heads exploded and just thought I was a bigot. What is so hard to understand about democracy being a big giant gang bang?

Right. I mean, there was a civil rights movement for a reason. It was ahead of the government. That is always how it will be. Plus, it also shows you that bigotry is not natural if those that want bigotry enforced need a law. Why would you seek a law unless you thought people would behave otherwise if left alone? Segregation was a way of protecting those business owners that wanted to segregate from the competition they would face from non-segregated business. The Montgomery Alabama bus line was run by the government.